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The Best Kept Secret in Colorado
By PK | December 18, 2008
With winter among us here in Craig, Colorado, the best kept secret in Colorado is out. This is winter range for the wildlife, which I love to photograph and the best is that I can stand at our picture window and snap away. I was quite delighted to find this trophy mule deer buck and his does meandering along the bank not 50 feet from me.
This is just one of the bucks that hang around the back streets of the town of Craig. He’s not a young buck, but a mature specimen of mule deer. You can see some of his antlers have broke off, probably due to fighting the other trophy buck I’ve seen in this area.
Mule deers are famous for their mule like ears which improve their hearing considerably. He spied me several times and it didn’t take him long to move up over the hillside.
I was totally amazed yesterday while sitting on the couch and talking on the phone to my oldest son in PA to see a 6-point buck walk by not 15 feet in front of the house. I jumped up to have a closer look, counting his antlers and watching him up close. Sorry, no pic of him as he didn’t stay around to graze.
The elk also find Craig and surrounding Moffat County home during the winter. I counted 41 cows in this herd, no bulls, on the ranch where we had a tag for hunting two weeks after hunting season on private land ended. The snow in the upper mountains pushed them down onto the ranches.
The lead cow is wise and is responsible for the safety of the bulls, other cows, and calves. She is also usually bigger and older than the other cows as you can see in this picture as she leads her herd to safety. Elk are very reclusive and even our presence of approximately 350 yards prompted her to move and return to the safety of the forest.
As the winter progresses, many more elk will migrate to this area for winter forage numbering into the thousands. Dalton and I plan on photographing these amazing animals in late January and February when the elk herd up on private ranches to feed. This will be an awesome sight to see.
The ‘Best Kept Secret in Colorado’ is their abundancy of wildlife. It is nature’s own personal zoo and watching the antelopes, deer and elk in their natural habitat is very rewarding.
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Topics: Colorado, Uncategorized |
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